THE 7 WONDERS OF MANCHESTER: Read on for the perfect introduction to the city

Manchester was the first city of the industrial revolution, the city that shaped the modern world, the industrial strength city.

These are the most spectacular sights to be seen, the great treasures of the city, the 7 Wonders of Manchester, each linked with our tours.

Central Library Reading RoomModelled on St Peter’s Basilica in Rome in a library designed like the Pantheon for a temple dedicated to learning and literature. Regular detailed tours of Central Library take place, often finishing with a close look at the Library’s treasures such as first editions of Isaac Newton’s Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica.

Chetham’s LibraryEurope’s oldest library and the oldest library in the English-speaking works is also the oldest non-religious building in Manchester. Here Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels devised many of their ideas about how society should be reorganised at a table that still survives in the reading room near a bookcase that was once part of a bed slept in by Bonnie Prince Charlie. Regular tours take place as a two-parter with Manchester Cathedral.• Address: Chetham’s Library, Long Millgate. Victoria Metrolink stop.

Liverpool Road, the world’s first railway stationThe Liverpool-Manchester railway line opened in September 1830 as the world’s first passenger route. The Liverpool terminus has long been demolished but the Manchester station survives as part of the sprawling Museum of Science and Industry. Tours take place as part of our railways special or on the Castlefield Explorer.• Address: Museum of Science & Industry, Liverpool Road. Deansgate-Castlefield Metrolink stop.

Manchester Town HallManchester Town Hall is the crowning glory of the world’s greatest industrial city, a Gothic Gormenghast replete with spires reaching up to God, stone statues, religious symbolism and the famous Ford Madox Brown murals. Our tour takes in everything– the architecture, the portraits, the pictures, the politics, the Order of the Garter crest, the strange animal that guards the entrance, the legend about the Nazis’ love of the building…right up to the thankfully abandoned plans to demolish it. Tour dates are announced about three weeks in advance on our website and on Facebook.• Address: Manchester Town Hall, Albert Square. St Peter’s Square Metrolink stop.

The Pre-Raphaelite Paintings at the Art GalleryThey were Britain’s greatest ever art movement, rebels, radicals, revolutionaries who emerged in 1848 to turn the art world upside down with their historically detailed mostly religious paintings hewn with vivid colour and natural realism. Come on our tour “The Pre-Raphaelites and Their World” and Town Hall Murals tour to learn more about these endlessly fascinating paintings.• Address: Manchester Art Gallery, Mosley Street. St Peter’s Square Metrolink stop.

The St John Fragment at the John Rylands LibraryThe oldest piece of the New Testament in existence, a tiny piece of a 2nd century book found in Egypt is on display in the gallery at the John Rylands Library, itself a Gothic triumph built out of the will of Manchester’s richest 19th century cotton merchant. Tours of the library start with an introduction to the city’s cotton past and John Rylands’ religious background outside St Ann’s Church.• Address: John Rylands Library, Deansgate. Deansgate-Castlefield Metrolink stop.

The Stations of the Cross Paintings at the Hidden Gem ChurchFourteen extraordinary expressionist paintings by Norman Adams of Jesus’s journey to the Cross line the walls of the only Catholic church in the city centre. St Mary’s the Hidden Gem was the first Catholic church to be built in England for around 250 years when it went up in the 1790s. We show off these astonishing and disturbing paintings on the Welcome to Manchester tour.• Address: Mulberry Street. St Peter’s Square Metrolink stop.

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BOOK A TALK WITH MANCHESTER’S WITTIEST PUBLIC SPEAKER: ED GLINERT

If you don’t fancy a walk, book a talk. What a great idea for your social club, U3A group, Probus set, National Trust outfit, local history society; to book New Manchester Walks’ Ed Glinert to give an illustrated talk on one of a huge variety of subjects. He had 65 people at Central Library for the Town Hall Murals recently and about 150 at Knutsford Methodist Church for Marx & Engels in Manchester.

Glinert is the most entertaining, best informed and wittiest public speaker on the circuit, armed with remarkable stories and unforgettable pictures, and has been a fixture on the talks scene for a number of years, giving regular presentations at Central Library, Gorton Monastery, the St James’s Club and the Portico Library. Continue reading →